


Shadowhunters- Run Boy Run

by Daevani



Category: Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare, Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Demons, Parabatai Bond
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-10
Updated: 2016-09-15
Packaged: 2018-07-14 03:30:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7151279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daevani/pseuds/Daevani
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Exploring the Parabatai Bond.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. This Race is a Prophecy

Run Boy Run! This world is not made for you  
Run Boy Run! They’re trying to catch you  
Run Boy Run! Running is a victory  
Run Boy Run! Beauty lays behind the hills  
Run Boy Run! The sun will be guiding you  
Run Boy Run! They’re dying to stop you  
Run Boy Run! This race is a prophecy  
Run Boy Run! Break out from society

Run Boy Run (Woodkid)

 

Jace is running. His lungs are burning, his feet feel like indefinable lumps. He lost track of time hours ago. The sun is starting to set, the trees around him casting long shadows, gripping him with their leafless branches, trying to bring him down with their crooked roots. Are they still behind him? He can’t hear anything but his own desperate gasping for air and his feet stomping on the ground, there is no reason for trying to be silent and staying hidden, not anymore. Suddenly there is a snap over him in a tree on his left, he looks up, too late, he feels a sharp pain in his side…

 

“Another one down. Only three left now.” The tall man looks up from the tracking device in his hands showing three red dots moving slowly across the screen. “Huh, who is it?” The blonde woman sitting across from the table typing on a laptop asks inquiringly. “Wayland, Lightwood and Stormwright.” The woman rolls her blue eyes “What a surprise, how close are they?” With a chuckle the man looks back at the device. “About 1.2 miles” With an evil grin the woman takes a walkie-talkie: “Let’s see how they deal with the Ravener demons”

 

The force of the blow almost knocks Jace off his feet, he looks down his right side, the area of his gear around his rips is colored red, he curses and continues running. When he jumps over a ditch he hears a scratching and squeaking sound, leaves and branches shoot up from the ground. Suddenly long insectile legs are around him, sharp fangs dripping with green saliva, are inches from his face. Before he can react the demon is yanked off him, dropping dead next to him, an arrow buried in its head. Jace looks up and sees Alec walking towards him.  
He looks like Jace feels: His dark hair a sweaty mess, his face contorted with pain. He is heavily breathing and his whole body is trembling from exhaustion. Not for the first time today Jace curses the fact that he doesn’t have a stele with him.  
“Well I kind of handed you that one on a silver platter…” Jace says still out of breath. “Let’s just keep moving.” Alec offers Jace his hand to help him up, eying his red stained gear. “There’s probably more of those” he says taking Alec’s hand and hoping to distract his parabatai from the stains. “Yeah, that is if Mara left us some” Alec says.  
Jace snorts scornfully, too tired for a witty comeback, they fall in a swift jog side by side. Having Alec beside him revitalizes Jace immensely, they have been parabatai for four years now and Jace got so used to always having Alec to rely on that he doesn’t even remember what it felt like not to feel the other boy’s presence. At first it had been weird to feel his heart change its rhythm to fit another one’s in fights and how he never really felt alone anymore. But he had gotten used to it quickly and now couldn’t understand how he could ever have lived without it.

As they continue to make their way out of the forest they pick up speed, crossing creeks by balancing over fallen trees and dangling branches and finally climbing a dried river bank. The forest clears and they see a wide terrain in front of them. Their final destination directly in front of them, they start to sprint, Jace turns to Alec to say something when suddenly a figure breaks out of the shrubbery, slide tackling him off his feet. Jace is casting a somersault, tumbling on the uneven ground. Alec stops abruptly, turning around, he sees Jace lying flatly on the ground and a few feet from him Mara, getting up while pushing her long brown hair out of her face and smiling at him triumphantly. “What are you waiting for?! Go!”  
He looks from her to Jace who is beginning to move slowly. He hesitates looking back to Mara then back to Jace. “Never mind” she sighs, shaking her head in disbelief then taking off past him.  
Alec bends down to Jace: “Are you alright?” Jace looks at him angrily: “What the hell are you doing?! Go after her!”  
“I’m not leaving without you. It’s too late anyways.” Alec says simply. “Come on” He pulls Jace up, stabilizing him by putting his friend’s arm over his shoulder. As they make their way past the muddy meadow Jace is grumbling to himself. Their destination comes into sight:  
A black surveillance van, Mara leaning casually against the door, an ironic smile on her face and Hodge Starkweather, a tracking device in one and a stopwatch in the other hand. Next to him stands Lydia Branwell, with a pen and a clipboard.  
"Look who finally made it” Hodge yells teasingly, waving the stopwatch over his head. Seeing Jace’s angry expression he quickly continues: “No need to pout, Mara was here first but you still broke the record by 1 minute and 56 seconds!” Before they could answer Lydia interposes: “well as far as the stats for the hits go, Jace if those would have been real weapons instead of paintball markers Alec would have had to carry you here…” Jace ignored her objection: “How many?” he asks. Lydia sighs yieldingly: “Alright: Killed demons: Jace: 7, Mara: 5, Alec: 3.” Jace looks at Mara triumphantly, she just crosses her arms.  
“Hey!” Lydia says demandingly “Next: hits: Jace 23, Mara: 8, Alec: 1. Jace if that paint on your gear was blood, you’d be pretty close to dead. You don’t pay enough attention to your surroundings, you’re careless.” Jace just grins: “That’s what I have Alec for!” He winks at his Parabatai who just shakes his head, laughing. “Ok, ok. I think you’re all tired. You’ll get your individual evaluations later. Let’s get back to the institute and share the good news.” They look at him eagerly. “Alexander Lightwood, Jonathan Wayland, Amarantha Stormwright, congratulations, you are ready to go on missions unsupervised, you’re full-fledged shadowhunters now” he says with a big smile.


	2. Break out from Society

The New York Institute was buzzing with energy. When they walked through the main entrance, heading for the command center, they passed excitedly chattering groups of shadowhunters. Along the way they picked up a few scraps of conversations about heroic rescue missions and spectacular demon-fighting.  
Since the academy had been shut down around 20 years ago, young shadowhunters were trained at home or at one of the institutes. In order to test their abilities and have an official conclusion of their education, the young shadowhunters now had to do the “quests”, which were held annually, each time in a different institute.

“There you are!!! I’ve been looking for you all over. How was it?!” Izzy emerged from one of the elevators, pacing towards them, her heels clicking on the tile floor and her black hair flowing down her back.   
“Oh well, the usual: quick morning run in the woods, decimating the Ravener population, being stabbed in the back…” Jace said, crossing his arms, deliberately ignoring Mara, who had already begun to take her gear off, pressing the elevator button to go up.   
She rolled her eyes: “Oh get over it, I was just teaching you a valuable lesson! Now go wash the disappointment off your clothes, you look like…” Feeling Jace’s anger rise up, threatening to explode Alec interrupted: “To answer your question Izzy, we got through, what about you?”  
Izzy’s eyes wandered over all of them in amusement. While she, as well as the other shadowhunters filling the halls, had already cleaned up and exchanged her gear for normal clothes- black leather pants, laced high heel boots and a dark red top that showed off the Angelic rune along her neckline- their little group, obviously the last to return, looked miserable. Their gear ripped and muddy, still sweaty and scratches on their skin.   
Izzy visually obtained from commenting on the whole situation: “They called it “the haunted house”. The task was to clear every room and get some victims out. The building was filled with Scorpios. We were done in under 2 hours. It was so much fun!”  
“Ok, how is that fair? We ran around those woods for over 8 hours!” Alec looked at Hodge accusingly.   
“I’d be more interested in the epic title of our quest.” Jace said mockingly.  
“Jace was concerned that the quest could be -and I’m quoting- the reason for his early death caused by boredom, clearly he needed a challenge and since parabatai always go together…” Hodge grinned, patted Alec on the shoulder and left towards the training room. They could hear a gloating snort from Mara before the elevator door closed in front of her.   
“Come on it was a little fun?” Jace looked up at Alec with an apologetic smile.  
“Not helping you to get the stains out of your gear.” Alec passed Jace and walked over to the armory to return his bow and quiver. A growling Jace and laughing Izzy followed him.   
“So what’s next, you think we will be assigned to another institute? I’d love to go to Spain or maybe Brazil?” Izzy asked. “Honestly I really don’t want to go to Idris, I mean no cell phones or Internet, and the people there are all so old-fashioned and closed-minded.”  
“No Seelies…”Jace threw in.   
Izzy nudged him with her elbow.  
“I don’t really care” Jace shrugged “I want to be where I can kill as many demons as possible and that’s practically anywhere”. He had finished cleaning his seraph blade and hung it up next to Alec’s bow. He took off his jacket and looked at the red stains unhappily.  
“Maybe…”  
“Nope” Alec turned around heading for the elevators.  
“Good luck” Izzy said looking at the jacket doubtingly. 

 

After they had all cleaned up, they met in the dining room. All the shadowhunters currently residing in the institute had gathered. Before dinner a list of the successful participants of the quests was read. Overall 18 out of 23 were now done with their training and about to be sent to other institutes or Idris.   
They each got an envelope which would contain their assignment. Izzy ripped hers open eagerly, but the excitement was drained out of her facial features when she read the words. “New York?!” she said disbelievingly. “Same here,” Jace said and Alec nodded showing them his paper. Izzy leaped up going around the room interrogating the others.  
Jace frowned, “so much for traveling the world and getting to know other cultures…”  
“I actually don’t really mind staying here,” Alec said thoughtfully.   
Jace looked at his friend, thinking that Alec had never really liked change. He remembered when their parents had decided that it was time for them to move out of their shared bedroom and each get their own. Alec had been moody for weeks, saying that the new room was too dark and stinky.   
“What are you smiling at?” Alec’s voice pulled him out of his thoughts.   
“What?” he asked  
“I think we should go save the others from Izzy” Alec said indicating Izzy who was gesturing and talking insistently to Mara and the thin pale girl who’s name Jace could never remember.   
“Lilly,” Alec said before Jace could even open his mouth to ask.  
When they reached the three girls, Hodge had joined them.  
“Mara and Lilly are going to Idris, Stephen is going to Mumbai and Dean to Iceland! I asked everyone, we’re the only ones staying here!” Izzy exclaimed enraged.  
“Seems like you’re as stuck here as I am,” Hodge hunched his shoulders. When he saw Izzy’s furious glance he held up his hands defensively. “The Clave decides who goes where, I have no idea why they assigned you to stay, all of you did great in the quests. Speaking of which, we still have to go through the individual evaluations. Alec let’s start with you.”  
Alec followed Hodge to one of the empty conference rooms. He sat down opposite of Hodge on a small desk.  
Hodge went through a folder, “All right there isn’t much to say, you secured the premises, hit all the targets and found the others quickly. You acted responsibly and decided quickly. Your statistics are impressive.”  
“Ok, thanks. Can I go back to the others now? Alec shifted on his chair uncomfortably.  
“No, there is one more thing. I know your envelope says New York, but they’re building up a small elite troop for highly sensitive missions in Idris. You’re one of the candidates that has been selected,” Hodge said excitedly.   
Alec didn’t know what to say. “Who else was selected?”   
“Lilly and Mara, other than that a few of the shadowhunters from other institutes.” Hodge answered.  
“What about Izzy and Jace?” Alec asked.  
“I don’t know much about the selection procedure, it’s all top secret, but they need someone who can follow the rules and can be discreet, someone who can be invisible. This is a great chance, Alec. So, what do you say?”


	3. Running is a Victory

His head hurt, the air was thick, the haze swallowed up everything, burning in his eyes. He felt sweat running down his neck. He tried to take deep breaths, calm down, clear his head, let go. No chance. Trying to move as little as possible, keeping his hands and arms close to his body, he moved forward. I need to get out. Alec knew it would be like this, why had he come?!

The reason was just a few feet away from him. Jace, dancing with a girl in a dark green dress. Every visible inch of her body, except her pretty face was covered in tattoos. Her long red hair fell down her back in thick braids and she was teasingly looking at Jace out of completely black eyes.   
Alec’s discomfort grew, he felt like the dancing and jumping bodies around him were closing in on him, he clenched his hands every time somebody touched him. The loud music, seeming to resonate from within himself and the light, changing colors with every flicker, drawing lines through the room made it impossible to think straight. He looked around for Izzy, last time he had seen her, she was laughing about something a dark haired, pointy- eared guy had whispered in her ear. He couldn’t see her anywhere. Another elbow in his back, an apologizing hand on his shoulder, a hopelessly drunk girl with white contacts smiling at him and in uncoordinated movements coming closer and closer…  
He couldn’t resist the urge to run away anymore. He made his way through the crowd, carefully trying to avoid physical contact, which was a hopeless endeavor in the dense crowd. He kept walking faster and faster, nearly running in the end, squeezing through the mass of bodies.  
When he finally reached the back door of the club he stumbled outside, taking a deep breath in the cold night air. 

 

On the occasion of their completed education the young shadowhunters had decided to go celebrate at Pandemonium. In some way this would be the only free night they would get, not being in training anymore but not yet being on duty. The others would leave for their assignments tomorrow, so it was also the last time with the people they had spent the last years with. He had successfully avoided going to Pandemonium several times before, but this time Jace and Izzy didn’t give him a chance, arguing that he couldn’t hate something he had never done. Well at least now he could say he hated it and never had to go again.  
“You made it longer than I did” Alec, leaning with his back against the door, noticed surprised that he wasn’t alone. Mara sat on the wall that enclosed the backyard of the club, raising one eyebrow and raising a bottle to him. He hesitated for a moment, then clambered up the wall and sat next to her with some distance, he still felt uneasy and the silence, in contrast to the music inside, was buzzing in his ears.   
They sat there for while in silence, Alec had to hunch a little because the branch of a huge tree reached over the wall, hanging above their heads.   
“So… you don’t like going out either?” he asked awkwardly making a vague gesture toward the club.  
She snorted: “I don’t like dancing, flirting or Alcohol, so no.” She looked down at the bottle in disgust.  
Alec remembered how a guy once had told her she should smile more often because it would look so much prettier on her. In response she had broken his nose and told him he should get punched in the face more often because that would definitely improve his appearance.  
“You`re leaving for Idris tomorrow?” he asked.  
“They asked you too.” It wasn’t a question and she didn’t sound surprised, just curious.  
“Yes” he looked down at his fingers.  
“But you’re not going.” She assessed  
“I told Hodge I’d think about it…”   
“Yeah right, you know you would have won the race if it wasn’t for Jace?! Anyway they won’t put away their golden boy in some weird secret experiment. And if he doesn’t go, you won’t.” she said angrily   
“Why do you hate him so much?!” Alec asked defensively  
“I don’t hate him. I’m just sick of everyone making excuses for his behavior and letting him get away with everything. I just feel like I have to take countermeasures, just to keep the balance.”

Alec wanted to tell her that it was completely unnecessary. That the person bringing Jace down the most, was Jace himself. How Jace aggravated people and behaved reckless to dare people to fight him and to keep them at a certain distance. How Jace had been surprised that someone could actually be worried about him and expect him to be careful with his own life. But she wouldn’t understand, so he said nothing and concentrated on tearing a leave into small bits.  
Mara seemed to have noticed that she upset him and asked: “When Jace asked you to become parabatai, did you agree right away?”  
He looked at her suspiciously. “I told him that I had to think about it”.  
She just looked at him expectantly.  
He continued reluctantly: “I knew he needed someone to protect him…mostly from himself.”  
“Did you ever regret it?” she asked  
“No!” the determination of his answer surprised himself. “I mean, it’s good to know someone has your back in a fight and the runes drawn by your parabatai are stronger…”  
“But isn’t it scary to be so close to someone?” she seemed genuinely interested  
“No… it feels like it’s… filling an empty space that you didn’t even know existed...it’s…” Alec paused unable to put it in words. “The only thing that scares me is that it could be gone one day”, he shivered at the thought.   
After a pause Mara said: “Lilly asked me. I don’t really know what to do.”  
Alec thought about how Mara had beaten up the other kids who were picking at the tiny girl and how Lilly in turn had helped Mara study. It made sense.  
“I think there isn’t a bad side to it really…” he said   
“Yeah probably. Oh well you can’t fall in love with your parabatai. At least you don’t have to worry about that, Jace is such a swellhead only capable of loving himself.” she threw in laughing.  
Alec was glad that it was dark and she couldn’t see him blush and wriggle uncomfortably. There it was again, the wish to just get up and run. Run until his feet refused to work.  
Just as he thought feverishly about something to say to break the awkward silence the door threw open and Jace stood in front of them.  
“Seriously, her of all people?! Alec you could do so much better!” He ducked his head to the bottle that Mara had thrown at him. She jumped off the wall and turned to Alec.  
“Thank you and farewell” she smiled at him quickly and then walked back into the club, passing Jace without looking at him.


	4. Disappear in the Trees

An overcast sky pressed down on the empty early morning streets. The mist drifted through the narrow alleyways and got caught between the last leaves left on the autumn-bound trees. He felt the tiny droplets of the fog on his skin, settling on his lashes. The sunrise was hidden behind a thick veil of clouds. His bag was packed, he didn’t need much, a few clothes, his favorite book, his bow.  
Alec ran his hand over his face, trying to get rid of the water, the vacillation, the doubts.  
He thought about the conversation with Jace last night after he had run out of Pandemonium:

 

“You`re not enjoying this at all, are you?” with one elegant movement Jace jumped up the wall and settled next to Alec.  
“Where’s the red haired girl?” Alec evaded the question.  
“Irma?” Jace smiled whimsically “she is…interesting…but tonight is about celebrating our glorious graduation. It`s about saying goodbye to a part of our life and moving on to the next chapter, it should be about the people closest to us”. Jace spoke the words with an exaggerated pathos grinning at him ironically.  
Alec snorted: “name one person of the class you`re going to miss.”  
“Fine, the only people I really care about are you and Izzy, we shouldn’t have dragged you here. So let’s look for Izzy and go where we should have gone in the first place.” Jace looked at his parabatai appealingly.  
They had gone to the little Pub apart from all the noise of Fifth Avenue. It was a place that had this easygoing and calming atmosphere, people were enjoying deep conversations, listening to music or playing pool. Jace, once again failed at beating Alec at dart, Izzy made them get up, moving around awkwardly and listen to her sing along loudly to “Ain’t No Sunshine”. They had stayed until early morning and while Jace and Izzy were going to bed, Alec packed his bag and then went on a morning run.

 

Now he was standing between the trees in front of the institute and he had a decision to make: Stay or leave.

 

The front door of the institute opened, a small group of people stepped out, the shadowhunters that were leaving for Idris. Alec closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths, he just stood like that for a little while. When he finally opened his eyes again, they were already gone.   
The warlock that had opened the portal lowered his hands and the last sparks disappeared. Alec tried to figure out what he felt, was it regret or relief? He had to come here, he had to at least believe that he genuinely thought about leaving, that he decided to stay, that it wasn’t determined from the start that he would stay. Leaving everything behind and starting over definitely had been a valid option, right?!  
Slowly he walked inside the institute and got into the elevator. When the door opened and he headed towards his room he almost ran into Jace.  
“Hey- oh, do you have a sleep-walking problem I should know about?!” Jace asked looking up and down his damp and tired appearance.  
“I’m, fine” Alec said feeling a smile loosen up his face and finally recognizing the warm feeling of relief banishing the hopeless helplessness that had paralyzed him. “I just want to be prepared to save your ass during all the missions to come”  
“We are going to have so much fun” Jace exclaimed enthusiastically, slapped Alec’s shoulder and left towards the bathroom whistling “Ain’t No Sunshine”.


End file.
